Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to detector assemblies, and more particularly to construction of fault tolerant detector assemblies.
Sensors or transducers are devices that transform input signals of one form into output signals of a different form. Commonly used transducers include light sensors, heat sensors, and acoustic sensors. A wide variety of various applications, such as biomedical non-invasive diagnostics and non-destructive testing (NDT) of materials entail the use of sensor arrays, where the sensors are often configured in two-dimensions (that is, the X-Y plane). Moreover, applications such as medical and industrial imaging, non-destructive testing (NDT) and inspection, security, baggage scanning, and astrophysics may entail the use of sensors that encompass large areas. In the field of medical diagnostics, such as, but not limited to, X-ray, computed tomography (CT), ultrasound and mammography, it may be desirable to employ sensors that encompass large areas. For instance, in an X-ray imaging system, large area transducers may be useful to encompass the area of the X-ray detector. Also, in non-medical applications even larger arrays may be desired.
It may be noted that in a detector assembly a sensor array may be disposed in close proximity and coupled to a corresponding electronics layer/array. Moreover, defects in sensor elements in the sensor array can affect the operation of respective electronics cells and or an entire system that employs the detector assembly. Additionally, once the detector assembly is fabricated, reworking the connections between defective sensor elements and corresponding electronics cells is a challenging task. Furthermore, reflow and handling during assembly of the detector assembly may result in new defects in the sensor array that did not exist during testing of the initial bare die wafer. Consequently, it may be difficult to accurately predict and/or mitigate occurrence of such yield related issues prior to fabrication of the detector assembly. Also, locating and/or mitigating defects in the sensor array once the detector assembly is fabricated are onerous tasks.
Currently available techniques attempt to solve the issue of closely coupled sensor and electronics failures by sorting assembled devices and discarding defective arrays. Other available techniques entail examining individual components to identify defective components prior to assembly. Furthermore, certain other techniques call for identifying the defective sensor elements during an imaging procedure and data corresponding to these defective sensor elements are compensated for. However, this practice is an iterative and time-consuming process.